The night sky from Pouakai tarn

I've been wanting to do some night photos of the milky way curving over the mountain (Taranaki) for a long time now but the conditions haven't been right and there is only a few days a year when everything lines up right. Firstly the milky way has to be in the right aspect then it has to be close to a new moon and lastly you need a fine clear night. For the last couple of months the night conditions around the new moon just haven't been clear enough and the weather outlook heading into Taranaki aniversary weekend didn't look promising. Then the storm blew through early and on Saturday evening it cleared up looking like it could be the perfect night.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I set off from home at 10:30pm and started out on the Mangorie track by torch light just before 11:00pm.  It was very still and calm and as I climbed up through the bush I kept getting glimpses of the stars through the tree tops so was hopeful that it was remaining clear as so often cloud builds up around the mountain and over the top of the ranges during the middle of the night. I've spent a few miserable nights in the mist on top of the ranges waiting hopefully for it all to clear up.

I cleared the bush line around 12:30am and was stunned by the clarity of the night sky. Not a cloud in sight with the great arc of the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon and not a breath of wind.

In another half hour I was down at the Pouakai tarn with Taranaki and the stars reflected perfectly in it's still mirror like surface. It was incredibly beautiful.  

I quickly donned some extra warm clothes and got busy setting up my tripod and camera gear. I had arrived a bit early with the milky way still being a bit too high in the sky to get comfortably in the frame of my 10mm lense.

To capture the whole milky way would require a panorama spanning a little over 180degrees. I use my 10mm lense with the camera on its side in portrait orientation swivelling it on my tripod to take 10 to 12 overlapping frames that I can later match up in photoshop.  Panoramas of the night sky are tricky (as per my previous blog) since you need a long exposure time to capture the stars and the stars keep on rotating across the night sky while you take the shots.  With a 10mm lense you can take exposures of up to 30sec before the stars get elongated due to movement however I've often found that photomerge can't match the frames back up when using exposures that long. You can align them manually but its difficult to get really good results I typically work with exposure times of between 14 to 24 seconds.  Normally I set my camera at iso 8000 for these night time panoramas but this time I decided to experiment with iso 12800 setting to get a bit more light into the exposure.

I had to wait until closer to 2:00am for the milky way to settle a bit lower and then took a number of series of photos at different exposure settings.  It was fortunate I took plenty of shots as I later found that photoshop couldn't manage to automatically merge half of the series I had taken.  The shots below were at 20 second exposures .

I had orignally planne to stay on the mountain until dawn but it was getting bitterly cold and when I'd finsihed taking the photos I suddenly realised how cold I was feeling.  I did have more gear in my pack but decided that the quickest way to warm up was to start walking again so I packed up and headed off, nearly coming to grief after a few steps as ice had started forming on the board walk - so I guese the temperature had dropped to below zero.

It's an awesome experience walking across the top of the ranges with the milky way spread out above you in all its glory and the clear silhouette of the mountain standing out to the south. 

The incomparable beauty of existence
Opened herself up across the night sky
Making me realise the insignificance
Of all I have ever said or done.

I stopped again at the top of the Pouakai plateau to take another series of panorama shots before finally heading back down into the bush getting back to the carpark around 4:00am. On the way down I came face to face with a posum climbing a tree on the side of the track. I could have reached out and touched it. I briefly tried to figure out how I could kill it with my bare hands but as soon as I glanced away to look for a hefty branch to club it with it darted off to the top of the tree.

The milky way from Pouakai tarn. The glow of lights to the left of Taranaki is from Stratford and to the right from Opunake.

The milky way and Taranaki from Pouakai plateau. Maude and Henry peaks are to the left of Taranaki, the Hump to the right. Ahukawakawa, the great spagnum moss swamp can be seen clearly between the Pouakais and Taranaki.

A closer up shot showing how clear the reflection in the tarn is. Maude and Henry peaks are to the left of the frame with the milky way rising up above them.